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She decides, You Succeed

Grow your business by improving gender balance at decision making levels.

ORIGINS

Currently there is, across the European Union, an important unbalance between the number of women graduates, skilled women, and women in economic decision-making positions in private companies.

This unbalance has been the object of a handful of studies and research; however, no greater results have been achieved in terms of number of women in Boards or other decision-making positions of private companies.

OBJECTIVES

The project aims at addressing the unequal representation of women in Boards of Directors in different areas of expertise and the lack of information on the importance and the benefits of having a greater gender-balance in economic decision-making positions.

As both private companies and the general population are generally unaware of the potential of women to participate in economic decision-making and of the loss of opportunities and talent which this attitude causes, the project will promote gender balance by convincing private companies of the benefits of facilitating women the access to economic decision-making positions.

CONTENTS

AFAEMME together with the Center for Inclusive Leadership, the European Women Inventors and Innovative Network and the European Association for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology will identify the current obstacles women face to access economic decision-making positions in different areas of work and the benefits private companies of different economic sectors would obtain from having more women in their economic decision-making posts.

The Women's Business Development Agency (UK), the Associazione Donne Imprenditrici e Donne Dirigenti di Azienda (IT), the Spanish Organisation of Businesswomen and Management (ES), Femei in Afaceri (RO), and the Women's NGO's Cooperation Network of Latvia (LT) will then be in charge of encouraging private companies and Employers Organizations to facilitate the access of women to economic decision-making positions and to promote a greater gender balance in their own Board of Directors.

The results of the project will be made available in a Final report which will be intensively disseminated so that it might have an even greater impact on private companies.

ACTIVITIES

Analyze the existing situation in the five beneficiary countries (Italy, Latvia, Romania, Spain and United Kingdom) with regard to the access of women to economic decision-making positions in the middle management, in the top management, in R&D, ITC and similar firms.

Develop a guide for each beneficiary country about the existing obstacles women face when trying to access decision-making positions and the benefits for private companies of having more women in their economic decision-making positions in each field of study.

Develop a toolkit containing the major findings of the guides and a communication strategy for transferring the information to private companies and employers organisations.

Inform private companies and employer organisations about the benefits of having more women in economic decision-making positions.

Gather the feedback of the encouraged companies and employers organisations.

Elaborate a Final Report of the project, containing the main results of the project, recommendations and other relevant information.

Disseminate the project’s results among a wider public.

BENEFICIARIES

While the direct target group of these activities are 150 private companies and 5 employers organisations (who will transfer the information to more private companies) the main beneficiaries of our project are skilled women and private companies.

Skilled women will benefit from the public campaign, the expanded knowledge on the issue to which the research and the final report will greatly contribute, and the active involvement of the project partners in directly persuading companies of the benefits of facilitating women’s access to economic decision-making positions.

Private companies will receive upgraded information on the benefits of having more women in economic decision-making positions. We expect this to have a great impact in the companies’ human resources and general management policies.